Given that, and people's attachment to their characters and the activities of their characters, it's reasonable to think that any given change could upset players not merely in terms of "nerfing", but maybe even their relationships and identities.

I forgot which version it was, but it was released not long before I stopped playing the game intensively, and it fixed a number of issues such as nerfing the T3 siege bots, making T2 more viable as an option in battle (for those of you who played, remember the T1 rushes in all maps, and the T1 to T3 mad rush in bigger maps?), and more.

As much as Deus Ex: Human Revolution subverts the standard mook v. villain hierarchy, the nerfing of enemy AI at regular difficulty or lower leads the game to observe another concept from TV Tropes, that of "mook chivalry."